


When Evening Falls So Hard

by Ballykissangel



Category: BBC Sherlock, Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Captain John Watson, Death, Defensively Heterosexual John Watson, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Epic Friendship, Gen, Greg Lestrade & John Watson Friendship, Heavy Angst, Hurt John Watson, Hurt/Comfort, I Believe in Sherlock Holmes, John Watson's War, Mycroft Being Mycroft, Mycroft Being a Good Brother, Mycroft Feels, Mycroft To The Rescue, Mycroft Worries, POV John Watson, POV Sherlock Holmes, Post Reichenbach, Sherlock Being Sherlock, Sherlock Being an Idiot, Sherlock Feels, Sherlock Holmes & John Watson Friendship, Sherlock Holmes Returns after Reichenbach, Sherlock Holmes and Feelings, Sherlock Is A Bit Not Good, Suicide Notes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-24
Updated: 2013-05-30
Packaged: 2017-12-12 21:09:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/816088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ballykissangel/pseuds/Ballykissangel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"All the kings horses, all the kings men couldn't put John Watson and Sherlock Holmes back together again"</p><p>Post reichenbach prequel to "We Might Not Make It Home" A returning Sherlock never dreamed they would end like this, he never thought he would be watching a shattered John standing on the roof edge of Barts leaving a death note as Sherlock begs him not to jump. Heavy angst. No slash, just epic friendship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. What A Day For Gone With The Wind

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This is a homecoming and post Reichenbach prequel to "We Might Not Make It Home" 
> 
>  
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock, I'm just visiting around with them.

A quiet rain slowly pattered against the lone window pane of the small, dark and bare flat. The grey clouds softly rolled outside, warning of further rain and gloom.

Sherlock's eyes traveled over the tiny flat that John had moved into after Sherlock's death. The cold room was colorless and void of feeling. No emotion or life hung around it.

It was so different from the warm and cozy flat of 221B Baker St. Even in the darkest days there always seemed to be a light in that flat that never went out. But in this flat, it seemed like life had left it behind, leaving only sadness to take its place.

Mycroft had said that John had moved out shortly after the funeral. Sherlock didn't blame him. He knew he wouldn't want to live in the Baker Street without John.

He knew how bad it was when he had traveled by himself, always turning around expecting John to be there, always catching himself speaking to John and finding that there would be only empty air beside him. He could only imagine how worse it would be at the flat they had shared.

Sherlock's eyes fixed on the door and his ears strained for the sound of footsteps on the stairs. He clasped his hands together to control their slight shaking as he sat in the soft lamplight. This was the day that Sherlock had hoped for and dreamed about for months.

He was so tired and weary. He thought that this day would never come, that he would never get here. This day was the only thing that had kept him going at times. The thought and hope of seeing John again was the only beacon of light he had had to fight toward in the darkness of those long, lonely months. Without that light he would have been lost and surely would have never found his way back.

He sat frozen in the hard, unfamiliar chair as he heard the familiar footfall of John coming up the stairs; he could hear the cane and the echo of the limp that had returned to haunt his friend.

Sherlock closed his eyes against the sound. He wasn't surprised, he had known with a terrible certainty that the limp would come back after Sherlock's death.

Just another skeleton he had added to John's closet.

Mycroft had told Sherlock that John had not been doing well, and was starting to slow down more and more as each day passed. He had suggested that Sherlock come home as soon as it could be arranged. Mycroft didn't tell Sherlock that he dreaded the thought of having to bury John by himself.

Mycroft had tried to keep an eye on John and help him as much as he could. So did Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson. But there is only so much water you can give to help a drowning man.

Sherlock opened his eyes and shook away the wave of nervousness that threatened to wash over him. He had waited months for this day and it was finally here and there was no time for cold feet now.

The door slowly opened and the silhouette of John appeared in the doorway and Sherlock's heart stopped when he saw him. He seemed smaller than before, like he had shrunk into himself. He looked so tired, so beaten, and so much like the John Watson that Sherlock remembered when they had first met.

John had his head down, his eyes lowered to the floor like he couldn't bear to see the world around him, like he didn't know what to do with it anymore. He had the bearing of a soldier who was fighting a war he knew he didn't have a chance of winning, but would not let himself surrender.

Seeing John like this completely blew away the last bit of bravado that Sherlock had planned on using. Without it, he was left to face this picture of tragedy open and vulnerable, without the familiar shield of nonchalance and apathy that he had carried his whole life for protection from emotions and feelings that he despised and never thought he would need or want.

After meeting John, he found his protective shield had developed strange, deep cracks, like heart lines. During the dark days when he was alone and as he worked and fought to destroy Moriarty's web, he had found his beloved shield had grown a million more cracks and had become weakened to the point of almost shattering at any moment, and when it did, it would let feelings and emotions that he had never met before creep in like silent motions of color.

Sherlock didn't even feel his shield fall and shatter away in those few seconds it took to see the image standing in the doorway.

John sensed Sherlock before he saw him. The man in the corner looked like Sherlock, but something about this apparition was different, like an ill-made replica that had seen better days.

John only stared at Sherlock, didn't move, and didn't say a word. He just stood there gripping his cane tightly. It was him again, the eyes were weary and haunted, the face drawn and worried, the long slender hands trembling slightly. But it was him.

John shook his head, and walked further into the living room. Hoping that if he ignored the ghost that he would disappear, just like he always did. For the past few months it was no longer satisfied in haunting only his dreams and Sherlock's ghost had started to follow him around during the day, appearing everywhere John went.

They had a routine, he and the ghost. He would haunt John and John would let him, until he couldn't take it anymore. And during the night when John's nightmares would overcome him and his tortured cries all began to sound the same, the ghost would leave him. And the next day they would start all over again, haunting each other with no mercy.

Sherlock broke the still silence, his soft baritone filled the air as his buried emotion tried to surface and betray Sherlock's voice.

"Hello, John, it's so _very_ good to see you again." John froze and he slowly turned back to the corner of the room where Sherlock sat. He looked sadly at Sherlock, like he was someone John both loved and hated to see.

"Oh, you again, I knew you'd show up tonight," John whispered as he rubbed his left shoulder, trying to ease the pain. "You always do seem to appear when the evening falls the hardest."

The approaching storm was making his leg and shoulder ache dreadfully. It would be like the ghost to show up now.

He paused as he bowed his head and pressed his fingers between his closed eyes. Looking up, he shook his head at the image of the person in the corner. "Stop this, I told you. You're dead, Sherlock and you _know_ you are, so why don't you just accept it and leave me alone so that I _can_."

The lamplight caught John's life weary face as he began to limp away from Sherlock and towards the kitchen. He paused and half turned back to the ghost in the room.

"We are dead and there's nothing you... nothing _we_ can do to fix us," John pointed a shaking finger at Sherlock's corner. "So just stop showing up and pretending we are alive."

Stunned, Sherlock realized by John's broken tone and actions that John didn't recognize him as being real. That he was accepting that his mind was playing tricks on him. Casting Sherlock as a ghost that apparently haunted him at every moment.

With dread in his heart, Sherlock realized he actually didn't feel like anything more than a ghost. All those months of dealing with Moriarty's men, hiding and running had faded him to nothing. Sherlock could hardly even recognize himself as being alive. He felt nothing like he used to. Maybe he _was_ a ghost. He had to think of a way to convince John. To convince _himself_ that he wasn't a ghost.

"No, not dead, John, I have come back. I wasn't really dead. It was all just a trick, I faked my death so that I could defeat Moriarty and clear my name."

John froze as his eyes begin to take in Sherlock more closely, catching things the other ghostly Sherlock's had lacked. This ghost Sherlock seemed to more alive than the last one, although not by much. John moved closer to him before he caught and made himself stand still. Not daring to come any closer.

"Fake?" John gasped as his voice began to shake. "Are you telling me that everything we… everything _I_ went through wasn't real? That all my grief and tears were all for an empty grave?

Hearing John say it made it all the worse. Sherlock tried to ignore the cold feeling that filled his stomach. John had changed so much. He looked older than Sherlock last remembered seeing him. And he had never heard John's voice so void of emotion before. It was like he had become used to talking to things that weren't there. Like he had grown to be a part of nothing himself.

_"We are dead and there's nothing you... nothing we can do to fix us."_

Sherlock shifted in the hard chair. Not daring to stand. Not trusting that his legs would support him at that moment.

"I'm sorry, John. I... I didn't mean for it to be like that, I didn't know it would take so long. I tried as hard as I could to come back as soon as I could."

John's face was pale, and he looked like a person who had heard it all before. Sherlock tried to get his mind to work, to reach out to John, to make him understand that this was all real. That _both_ of them were real.

Sherlock pulled his old black coat closer to his thin body, silently shivering from the cold that filled the room. "I know you don't think that this is real and it's all too good to be true. So do I."

The look on John's face made Sherlock's voice weak and it took all of his strength to keep talking.

"I can hardly believe it myself, for I don't even know how I made it. There were some days, I honestly didn't think I would. I have never fought for anything so hard in my life then I did Moriarty's men and the fear I'd have nothing to come back to. That there wouldn't be a John to come back to."

Emotions swept through John, and his mind would not be stilled with all the questions that filled him. Those same worn out questions he had carried with him for months. Always knowing they would never be answered, but still they just kept hanging around. Threatening to overtake him at any moment.

Those tired, ghostly grey eyes were begging him to understand, to let him explain, But John didn't understand and he didn't think he ever would and nothing the ghost Sherlock could say would fix this.

Sherlock's death had taken the life out of John. And here was this ghost trying to say that he was back. John realized with a shudder of horror, that even if it wasn't an illusion and a mistake of his mind that sat there before him. John knew that he had no life left in him to care. The time and place that he had always dreamed about was here, and he couldn't accept it the way he knew he wanted to, the way he knew he should.

Before he met the consulting detective he never thought that there would be a chance for a war-scarred and tremor burdened army doctor to have a happy and successful life. After he had met Sherlock, John's whole world had changed.

He finally thought that maybe he would have a chance at a decent life and maybe even a great one. And there wasn't one he'd rather have than chasing down criminals and getting woken up at 3am by violin music loudly played by a curly haired consulting detective who forgot his pants.

After Sherlock's death, the old familiar echo of doubt began to creep up in him again that maybe it had all been a mistake, maybe he wasn't meant to have a happy life. That he was never supposed to get the one he always dreamed and hoped for ever since he was young. He would always be _that_ wounded soldier at the train station being greeted home by silence and the flickering of a motel vacancy sign.

Some people, no matter how hard they try, never get to be truly happy and John knew-accepted-that he was _just_ one of those people. And there was nothing he could do but make himself soldier on, keep his head down and pretend not to notice the world losing color.

John took a step toward Sherlock's ghost then stopped himself and limped back to the doorway as he ran a shaking hand through his hair. As he whirled back around to face Sherlock, his face filled with pain and anguish, as if he was re-watching an old memory.

"I watched you die...I begged you not to jump. I couldn't truly believe you were dead even when I watched your blood run in the street. I wouldn't let myself believe and I didn't until they buried you. It killed me, you know? Seeing your name set in stone."

He could feel tears filling his eyes and the old anger and confusion began to creep over him again.

"And if you really did fake your death like you say you did. Why wouldn't you tell me? All this time and not even a _word_ ; you just left me to fill an empty coffin with myself."

Sherlock flinched at those words. He gripped his hands together even tighter now. He so desperately wished John would understand, would listen to him and give him a chance. But John's hurt and anger were too strong for Sherlock's weariness for himself and overwhelming sadness for John.

He wanted to tell John. Oh how he wanted to tell him. Except he found that the words he had carefully planned out before failed him now, and there was nothing he could say that would possibly make sense for both of them to have come to be like this. Especially John, he should never be like this. John, his conductor of light. John, whose eyes that used to shine when he laughed and who braved the world for him in the moment Sherlock said "Take my hand." And the John who did and who never let go.

The excuses seemed so empty and useless now in the light of the disaster of what lay before him. Even though it might have been the only way to save them, it had been a terrible price to pay for the both of them.

He had no reason for a man who fully deserved to be dead to be alive and a man who deserved every reason to be alive to be on the edge of death. He had no fair reason for things to be this way. Logic had deserted him now, leaving him with empty excuses to face the wreckage of what had been the best man he had ever known.

Magic tricks lose their meaning when the white rabbit dies in the top hat.

Sherlock could see John's eyes that had been once blue, had been washed to a hollow grey, like all his tears and grief had washed the blue out of them, leaving them an empty shell of grey.

Sherlock could tell, that by the severity of the tremor of John's hand, the flexing of his fingers and his psychosomatic limp that they had all returned with a vengeance and he could see John's old eating disorder had returned also.

Although John didn't suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome as bad as some soldiers it did not completely pass him by and after he was released from the RAMC he developed a depression linked eating disorder that was common among PTSD sufferers.

John was thin, much more than when Sherlock had first met him. After they moved into flat Sherlock had tried so hard to make sure that John ate.

Sherlock wasn't one for eating meals himself, but he tried to help John eat more by making himself remember to eat. He even set reminders to himself on his mobile. John had been startled many times by Sherlock's sudden declarations of how hungry he was and why didn't they grab their coats and run over to Angelo's.

He even went so far for John that he would halt an investigation on more than one occasion to make sure John got a meal into him and would keep a different assortment of snacks in his various coat pockets in case his 'transport' ran out of fuel and John also needed to 'refuel.'

It took time and a lot of quiet help from Sherlock for the eating disorder to gradually leave him. And when it finally did, John didn't even notice, but Sherlock did, and he smiled to himself behind his microscope as he listened to the chorus of pots and pans and the happy whistling of John making a lasagna in the kitchen like it was the most glorious task he had done in ages.

Sherlock had learned over the few months that he had known him that a well fed John was a happy John, not because he was full but he was actually happy enough to eat.

But those happy days were clearly gone now, as John was the thinnest Sherlock had ever seen him. John didn't mean to starve himself; he just didn't see the point of eating as an effort to stay alive anymore. He could no longer bring himself to care. The only person, the _only one_ bigger than his apathy and the one that would have cared, hadn't been there for him.

He was only an empty shadow of the man he once had been. Sherlock realized that John was only a mirror image of himself. John had turned into a faded and worn out ghost just like Sherlock had, and he had only himself to haunt through all those long and terrible nights stuck with the memories that tormented him.

Sherlock could see now how much his actions had destroyed his friend. He rose from the chair and stepped numbly toward John, never taking his eyes off of him.

John saw him coming toward him and he took a step back, flinching at the thought of being touched. Sherlock stopped in mid step, the look in John's eyes was unbearable.

"I wanted to tell you, to let you know, but I couldn't, not with Moriarty's men still around. I couldn't come back until I had broken his up his ring and there wasn't a threat of them trying to hurt us anymore."

John's eyes lowered to the floor and it took everything that Sherlock had not rush forward and embrace him.

"Did Mycroft know?" John whispered, looking down at the floor; he was clenching and un-clenching his hand now.

"Yes." Sherlock replied softly.

John nodded slightly, turning his head slightly as his mouth tightened.

Sherlock moved closer to him, but the warning look in John's eyes halted his steps.

"I know you don't understand and you have every right to be angry but I can explain it all to you. Please, just let me." Sherlock implored him. "I have come home, John... I have come back to make it right, to pick up the pieces that I left behind."

"You are too late!" John's raised voice broke as he took a sudden step backwards away from Sherlock and he pressed his trembling fist to his mouth for a moment then lowering it, he made it hold still by his side. "You're too late, Sherlock."

John clutched his cane in his right hand as his left clenched into a fist. His body stiffened as he shook his head slightly.

"Why do you even keeping coming back? It's not like there is anything left for you here. I'm not who I used to be. You well made sure of that. I'm... I'm nothing now. John's voice broke to a whisper. "You should just leave both of us dead, Sherlock."

The shock of John's bitter words ran through Sherlock like he had struck him. He could see John crumbling before his very eyes and he didn't even have a chance to explain himself.

He knew how hard John had tried to keep going after Sherlock's fall. He knew how the soldier that John was, put his brave face on and tried so hard to keep living and going through the motions. John was the strongest man that Sherlock had ever known; Sherlock always knew that it would take a great burden to make John Watson crumble. Sherlock never imagined he would be the one to place that burden on Johns back.

Not all the king's horses, not all the king's men could put Sherlock Holmes and John Watson back together again.

Tears filled Sherlock's eyes before he even knew they were upon him.

"Please, John," Sherlock tried to keep his voice steady. "Let me explain." he stepped toward John again, reaching out a slightly trembling hand toward his shattered friend as he did so.

"I have so much I want... that I need to tell you. I know you're tired and scared and you don't know what to think, so am I, John. I'm terrified."

Sherlock's voice was breaking now. "Just give me a chance, I never...never missed anything as badly as I did in those long months of not being able to talk to you."

John backed away from Sherlock. The look on John face made Sherlock freeze in his step.

"No, Sherlock, you can't, not this time. There is no explanation you can possibly give me that I could understand and that will undo and make everything I have gone through not real and all for nothing. It simply…" John paused as he closed his eyes and his mouth tightened.

He looked up at Sherlock again. "It just simply doesn't matter, there is nothing you can say or do to change what has happened. You just can't come back with a little explanation and expect everything to be the same as when you left it."

"You were not the only one who died that day, Sherlock," Johns voice held a cold tremble. "Even if you did only pretend to die, I didn't. And logic can't fix a dead man."

The chilling hand of desperation gripped Sherlock.

_No, this was all wrong, they couldn't end like this. It wasn't supposed to be like this._

"Please, John; please just let me talk to you, I-"

John interrupted him with a raised hand and was already turning his back on Sherlock as he headed toward the door.

"No, Sherlock, I just can't. Not... not this time, like I said, there isn't anything here for you anymore. You may have the power and tricks to raise yourself from the dead, but plain ordinary people like me, well, when someone kills _us_ we stay dead and there is no going back."

Sherlock gasped and he felt frozen to the floor as he watched his only friend turn away from him.

John opened the door. Clutching the door handle, he turned back to face Sherlock. His grey, dead eyes were distraught and his face pale.

"When I come back you'll be gone just like you always are. It doesn't even matter if you are real and alive like you say. It just doesn't matter anymore and it doesn't change anything because I can no longer tell the difference between living and dying, even if you can.

John's voice hushed to a broken whisper, and he angrily brushed at his eyes with the sleeve of his jumper.

"Just go back to wherever you came from, Sherlock, and quit coming back here just to clear your conscience. Don't trouble yourself with real dead men like me."

And with that, Sherlock watched the remains of what had been his soldier, his doctor and most importantly, his friend, walk away from him and out the door.

Sherlock stared at the closed-door and a soft gasp escaped him as he fell to his knees on the floor and buried his face in his hands.

The rest of his strength and hope that there might be a chance left for him drained away, leaving the exhausted and shattered remains of a man clutching the pieces of the last lucky break that he had just broken in two.

Softly rolling thunder swept through the air. As his grief for himself and John come pouring down over him and the rain drummed harder against the windowpane.

Sherlock stayed in John's tiny flat. Sitting in the corner of the hall, arms wrapped around his knees. Sitting numbly for hours. Trying to think of what to do, trying to get his numb mind to work.

His thoughts were interrupted by his mobile ringing.

It was Mycroft calling.

"Yes, Mycroft?"

"Sherlock." Something in Mycroft's voice made him freeze, taking his breath away.

He closed his eyes, dreading the words that would come.

"Where is he, Mycroft?" Sherlock whispered.

"He's on the roof of Saint Barts."

For the ghost that he felt he was, Sherlock Holmes never ran so hard in his life.

_To Be Continued..._


	2. What A Day To Realize I'm Not Dead

John didn't have a plan. He didn't have a real reason to go up on the roof. He was just trying to get away and get his head straight, like he always did when his memories threatened to drown him in their haunting waves. His feet always seemed to take him up to the roof. Everything seemed to lead up to that roof.

Mycroft Holmes had found him there several times.

The roof was always the first place Mycroft would check when John would go missing. Mycroft would usually send Lestrade to go coax him down and make sure he got back to his flat safely.

There was one time, during a particularly miserable day that John was having, that he was surprised to see that Mycroft himself had come up on the roof.

He didn't say anything to John. Didn't try to drag him down or try to reason with him. He just nodded at him and went and sat on old paint bucket someone had left there. Draping the black umbrella in the crook of his arm, Mycroft let John cry silently as he knelt on his knees before the ledge.

After he was ready to go, Mycroft took him home, made him a cup of tea and, before leaving, looked him straight in the eyes and gently told him that, "The telephone works both ways you know, John." and he had left as silently as he came. John later found the black umbrella lying on the bare kitchen table in his flat with a note that read: _For the rainy days, I know you'll take care of it. M.H._

John didn't have to pay a visit to the roof for weeks after that day. Mycroft had been the only one to allow him to be ready to leave on his own.

They took many trips to the roof, John and that black umbrella. It would spread its black wings over him. Keeping lonely vigil, protecting him from the rain and storm clouds of the outside as he was being battered and drowned by the storms on the inside. As the skies wept over it and John wept beneath it.

He heard the door to the roof exit slowly creak open.

Sherlock could see John standing on the edge of the roof, his head bowed and he was leaning on his cane with his head resting in his free hand. As he drew closer, he could see John's shoulders shaking slightly with quiet sobs.

"John." He called softly to his friend so as not to startle him. He saw John's head rise and his shoulders stiffen back into his military shell.

"Back again to haunt me, Sherlock?"

His lifeless voice floated through the air, mixing with the cold wind that the storm clouds had brought with them.

The cold words sliced through Sherlock like a knife.

Maybe John was right and he did die from his fall off the roof and he took John with him. Maybe they were both dead like John believed and Sherlock felt. And they just secretly didn't want to admit it so they kept on believing that if they kept pretending to breathe they could make it through another night.

He slowly walked toward John. He tried to control his trembling voice "I just wanted to make sure you were alright."

Sherlock felt so fragile and hollow. It felt like the cold wind would sweep him away. Isn't that what happens to faded and worn out ghosts? They get blown away.

John's worn out laugh was filled with pain and bitterness. "Since when have you cared if I was alright?"

Sherlock flinched against the words. "I have always cared, John, you of all people would know. You were the one who taught me how to care."

John slowly turned to face him, the look on his face confirmed all of Sherlock's fears.

"The only thing I know is that I know nothing." He whispered. "Everything I used to know doesn't matter anymore. I was all for believing once, but now..." His flat and empty voice trailed off and the cold wind stole it away.

Fear gripped Sherlock and it filled his voice; he stretched out his hand to John.

"It does! It does matter. If you do this it will be like saying everything that ever happened to us was for nothing. What we had, what we used to be was real-It still is real."

"If you do this it will mean that Moriarty wins, even though he's dead, if he gets you it will mean all the work and all the time I spent tracking down his men was just the battle and losing John Watson means losing the war. And he will have won."

Sherlock took another faltering step toward John and then froze fearing that if he moved too fast it would push him even further into jumping.

He turned in a circle agitatedly, his coat floating behind him. Swiping at his trembling mouth with the back of his hand he tried desperately to think of a way to keep John from jumping.

Sherlock whirled around to face John again, his face drawn in regret and overwhelming emotion.

"That's why I tried and fought so hard to come back, to come back for the both of use so we can begin again.

"You don't have to do this, John, please. It doesn't have to end here. I... I need you."

He took a tiny step toward John, fastening his eyes onto John's and holding out his hand toward him again, just like all those months ago.

"I never understood before, the phrase, "you never realize how much you need it until you lose it." I finally understood what it truly meant during the nights when I was alone and I had no John beside me. All I could do was think of you and how you were doing, wishing you were here and that I would give anything to just be able to sit and have a cup a tea with you again."

Sherlock tried to keep his voice controlled. He found that it was getting harder and harder to keep himself in control every second that John stayed on the ledge.

"I... I don't want you to be just a casualty. It's too late for me, John, but you... I never want _you_ to turn into a casualty."

Something in Sherlock's voice made John pause. He closed his eyes and blinked away tears. Why wouldn't Sherlock just leave him alone?

Tears began to blur Sherlock's vision, and he felt one slide down his cheek. How did they get here, to this point? He never meant for John to end this way. He had tried so hard to save him but all his efforts had been in vain. And now he was watching John stand exactly where he stood once, with the same look on his face, like there was no way of going back.

This was John's note. Isn't that what people did? Leave notes.

John turned away from Sherlock, looking back down at to the street below.

"I have been dead a long time, Sherlock. You don't need me, if you needed me you wouldn't have left me so easily." John whispered the grief overcoming his hollow voice.

"You left me," John whispered, tears making his voice waver. "You left me behind just like everyone else I have known. Everyone always leaves." He raised his hand to the air and letting it fall limply by his side he turned to face Sherlock again. Tear filled blue eyes met fear filled grey ones whose tears were already escaping

"Just let me go, Sherlock. I'll see you again soon and when I do, it won't matter anymore for you can't haunt a true ghost."

Sherlock took another tiny step toward John. His heart was beating madly, like a drum. Fear and desperation made his voice start to shake "Please, John, come down and lets talk about this, I know we can find a way.

"I'm not a ghost, and neither are you, I'm real, John. You're real, I promise. Please just let me show you."

The outstretched hand shook in the wind, and John had to stick his own trembling hand into his pocket to keep from reaching out to it.

Sherlock took another tiny step closer to John.

"Take my hand. You don't have to hide from me, not anymore.

"I know what you're feeling, I know you're too scared to face the future anymore and you're just looking for a place to stop running and rest in peace. So am I."

Another tear slide down Sherlock's face but he couldn't feel them anymore. "I'm... I'm so tired and scared I have no idea what to do. But I know I have to try. That _we_ have to try. At least for each other. We have made it this far, John. We can't throw it away now."

Sherlock took another step closer to John, the wind was picking up now. The rain dripped from Sherlock's black curls as the wind blew his tattered coat around him.

"Don't throw it all away like this. Don't turn into me, you're a better man than I'll ever be and I couldn't bear you turning into me. Please, John, don't throw away the only good thing that you ever had, away."

John looked down at the empty street below. He wanted to desperately believe this Sherlock that was begging him was real. He wanted nothing more badly as he wanted to jump off the ledge to run and grab and to hold on to him and to believe his words. But he couldn't let himself. He knew this apparition would just disappear again, leaving John alone to the fear and silence and he would have to go though the memories and pain all over again.

John sighed and shook his head. Thunder sounded in the distance.

"All this time I was so dead and you were - are alive. All of the mourning I did for you and times I spent thinking I should have done something different. I must not have been a very good friend if you didn't even trust me to tell me you were still alive and just left me to face all that grief alone. And then here you come back now and you're all "I'm not dead, John, It was a fake, John."

"I'm not sure how I feel about it; I'm not sure what to do."

"Emotion gripped Sherlock's voice even tighter as he took another step closer to the ledge. "You are not just my friend, John, you are my only friend and _the_ only one I've ever wanted and I'm sorry the only way I could show it was to make you suffer like this."

Another step closer to the ledge. Another step to refusing to accept John's note.

"It's why I didn't contact you, because you _are_ my friend. You told me once that friends protect each other and that's what I did because I didn't want any one to have a chance to hurt you."

"But it looks like someone did anyway... I did." Sherlock's voice trailed into a whisper. He took another step closer to the ledge, his hand still held out to John.

"I know what you're feeling. It's like the shadows have taken over your mind and you can't feel or see anything. Like the colors are gone and everything seems cold even if you can't feel it anymore. And the only thing you can feel is the shadows inside yourself and you can't imagine how you'll ever break away from them."

Sherlock was close to John now, he could see John trembling and the tears staining his cheeks. The wind softly ruffled John's hair as a streak of lightning touched the ground somewhere in the distance.

Sherlock took another step closer, his deep baritone breaking as his tears tried to steal it away.

"I think we have been given another chance, at least you have. If anyone deserved another chance it's you and that's why I came back. So I could give it to you."

Sherlock took another step, never taking his eyes off of John.

"So I could give you the second chance that I stole when I jumped from the roof and faked my death. You deserve to have it more than I ever will and I don't want it... not anymore, not if it means losing you like this..."

Sherlock's voice died in the wind as John looked at him, grief and anger flowing through his face.

"Why did you jump, Sherlock? Why did you lie and say that you were a fake? You were my best friend, Sherlock, and you left me. How dare you! I begged y-"

He was cut off by Sherlock, who silently strode over the last few feet of the roof to him and wrapped his long, thin arms around him, dragging him away from the ledge as he buried his black curly head in John's shoulder and held onto him as if he would never let him go.

_He's so thin, Oh, John, what have I done to you? I never meant to hurt you like this, never realized that it would be this bad._

John desperately tried to break away from Sherlock, fighting against the strong arms that held him. But Sherlock, unwilling to surrender John back to that place of pain and despair he had been trapped in for so long. Just would not let him go.

John only stopped his efforts to escape when he heard Sherlock sob and felt his tears brush John's cheek. As Sherlock's tears fell and mixed with John's something inside John broke, and he cried like he hadn't cried in ages.

He felt his anger and grief wash out of him and finally surrendering to Sherlock's embrace, he wrapped his arms around Sherlock's own much too thin body and held onto his friend, terrified that he was just a dream and would slip through his fingers like he did in all of his dreams and he buried his face in Sherlock's chest.

He knew now for sure that this was the real Sherlock and there would be no more ghosts. Because ghosts cannot weep like the person who held onto him for dear life.

They held each other and they cried. They cried for each other and for the people they used to be.

The rain continued to fall.

Tears mixed with rain.

And the wind sighed.

"Please, John," John heard Sherlock tearfully whisper into his shoulder. "Forgive me, I never meant to hurt you like this; I never meant to drive you to this place on the roof. I never meant to leave you here, like this. Don't turn me away, John. Please let me come back and live again, don't make be go back to the dark place where I've come. Please, let me come home."

Everything that had built up in Sherlock over those long and hard months began to overflow in him and he knew this was his last and only chance to tell John the truth.

"I'll go if you want me to, but I never want to leave again. I never meant to hurt you and I never wanted to leave you, but it was just the only way I could think of to keep you, Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson from dying.

His voice was shaking more than ever now and he closed his eyes as tears of weariness and grief escaped them.

"I didn't mean to kill you by saving you, I'm sorry, John. I know it's not fair to ask your forgiveness for I know I'll never deserve it, but please let me come back. I want to live again and you're the _only_ one who will let me."

John tightened his arms around his much alive and not a ghost-friend. He gripped the frayed black Belfast coat. "Of course I forgive you. You big idiot," John sobbed. "Please stay, please... I don't want you to leave again. I wasn't really going to jump; I was just trying to get my head straight."

John never believed that he would see the day someone would actually remember and come back for him. No one ever came back for him.

He had spent his life trying to save and help the broken but no one had ever tried to save and fix him before. He never thought that a tired, physically and mentally war scarred army doctor would actually matter to someone.

But he understood now, as he stood there in the rain. Holding onto the one who _did_ remember him. Holding onto him like the world would end.

"I'm so glad you came back, Sherlock. I'm so glad you remembered me. I'm afraid I'm not sure if I know much about this living business. The day of your funeral it seemed like they buried both of us. I'm not sure I even know how to live any more, it's like the words of a song I used to love to sing but when you died I forgot the words."

Sherlock clutched John's jumper, that dear old familiar blue jumper. His voice broke as tears of relief threatened to choke him, as John's words seeped into his mind.

"Anyone who could forget _you,_ John Watson is a fool. The words will come back to you John; I promise I'll find them for you."

"I've missed you, John, missed you so much it hurt. It took everything I had not to contact you, to let you know the truth. There wasn't a day that went by that I didn't think of you. I'm so sorry that I have been able to help other people but was only able to hurt you. You have stopped eating, you have stopped living and I'm sorry for never realizing you would stop caring. Please don't stop, John."

Sherlock's desperate words ran through John. Tearing down the last bit of grief and anger inside of him.

"Do you think there is any hope for us, Sherlock? Can we ever go back to what we used to be? I'm so tired of being a shadow and I'm terrified because I think I have forgotten how to be a real person."

Sherlock clung to John, blinking back tears. "We'll learn to live again," he whispered against John's shoulder. "We'll find ourselves again, I promise you we will. I won't let us...I won't let _you_ end this way."

John could hear Sherlock's heart beating, the rhythm soaking into John. The feeling of sound running through him, scattering the darkness.

He so desperately wanted to believe those bare hearted words.

"Are you sure, Sherlock, are you sure that we can?"

Sherlock raised his tear streaked face to the grey clouds, his eyes catching a bit of sun trying to break through and he held John tighter.

"I _promise_ you, John Watson."

That was all John needed to hear and it felt like those whispered words had just given him a new breath of life.

"I trust you, Sherlock, I have always trusted you." John replied softly, his face buried in Sherlock's coat as the rain washed his tears away.

"Do you think Mrs. Hudson will let us come back to Baker Street?" Sherlock weakly asked as they finally loosened their embrace and shakily wiped their eyes.

"Oh I know she will, I can't wait to see what she does when she sees you," replied John, laughing softly through the last of his tears.

Sherlock shook his head, sniffing as he wiped at his chin with his sleeve. "Ten pounds says she slaps me in the face then hugs me."

"I'll take you up on it." John quipped.

"Do you think we should get off this roof before we get struck by lightning?' Sherlock asked as he took hold the sleeve of John's jumper.

John nodded. "Good idea."

He let Sherlock lead him across the roof to the exit door. Sherlock's hand still clutching the sleeve of his jumper, as if he wanted to make sure that John was still real and he wouldn't disappear on him.

The rain had almost stopped as they reached the street and the signs of a newborn rainbow began to appear above them.

"Well then, shall we go home?" John asked, looking up at Sherlock.

Sherlock looked at him and smiled, his eyes growing brighter like someone had just turned on a light.

"I have waited so long for someone to ask me that. There is no place where I'd rather go."

They walked toward the safe refuge they always had called home, the place they knew would be waiting for them.

The clouds drifted away and the sun appeared and shined down on the wet street.

Sherlock and John walked side by side, each clutching the bit of hem of the others sleeve.

Scared to death of what and who they would find in the upcoming future, and wondering how they could ever become real again.

They didn't know what would be ahead of coming back.

But among all the fears, something inside them knew that whatever journey they would have to take, it wouldn't be nearly as bad knowing that they weren't walking that path alone.

The two men walked down the street. They seemed to be only shadows, but the closer to Baker Street they got, the more real and animated they became, until the only image of shadows that hung about them were the ones that were being cast by the setting sun, breaking through the clouds and shining behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: The sequel "We Might Not Make It Home" ties right into this if you are interested in seeing what happens to them next and if they will ever be alright again.
> 
> Thank you for all the reviews, follows and favouriting.


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